Our final day in Scotland—pause for sadness—was a solid romp through Glasgow. And by solid we mean, trying to cover quite a few things in an eight- to ten-hour period basically but ditching the multiple 50-minute train rides.
Breakfast at the flat, coffee from down the road, a quick walk through Kelvingrove Park, straight to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (FREE!—we love the UK) by opening time. Contemporary art, historic art, classic art, stuffed animals and creatures, what a great museum for all of us to explore.
While it was very cool to see a small selection of pieces from H’s personal favorite artists—Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, Cézanne to name a few—the exhibit she and I enjoyed most was from a local artist Eric Watt (1934-2005). The exhibit notes he was an amateur photographer who captured everyday life in Glasgow in the 1950s and beyond. This museum visit turned into a great conversation with Ethan about art. For instance, H brought up Duchamp’s urinal and how she and Uncle Colin enjoy debating why it is called art.
We tucked into a recommended neighborhood pub for lunch, had yet another fantastic meal, walked some more, and grabbed an Uber over to the Riverside Museum (aka the transportation museum). Surprise! There was a music festival just starting up and we couldn’t get to the Tall Ship Glenlee, the primary reason people visit said museum. Regardless, the kids loved interacting with all of the pieces within the museum and we were briefly entertained by a seemingly misplaced “history of Glasgow record shops” exhibit.
We never bothered to figure out Glasgow’s local underground rail system—although it was explained to us that it’s much like Houston’s freeways, just a couple of loops. We left the museum and grabbed another Uber to seek out the most delightful gelato and churros spot, yet another stellar recommendation—this time from the guy who checked us into the flat.
On Heather’s hit list was the Hunterian Art Gallery, which also has the recreation of the Mackintosh house. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an architect and later painter and in between a bunch of other artsy things that our Glaswegian artist friend shed light on many years ago. This husband and wife team could have easily reincarnated as Charles and Ray Eames. The body of their work within this house was all the custom furniture they created.
All that put us near dinner time so Heather and Ella went to the local grocery to grab water and snacks for the next day’s travel, and David and Ethan visited a nearby record shop. Our final goal for the day was to score some whiskey and haggis—as our friends said, “haggis, neeps and tatties” (haggis/potatoes/turnips). Not only was Stravaigin a three minute walk from the flat, it had what we were looking for and could accommodate the kids.
Let us preface this with, we think we’ve tried haggis once and it did not sit well with us. So the plan was for one adult to order curry and the other to order haggis. Should the latter not work out, at least we had curry to bury it under. The restaurant thankfully offered portion options for this particular meal and of course with failing already in our minds, our small portion order showed up as the large portion. The commitment sat before Heather initially.
Stravaigin is a previous Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant (see also Manchester’s El Gato Negro) and has claim to award-winning homemade haggis. Looking back at their website, they offer quite an array of items we would never think to try—rocky mountain oysters, squirrel or pigeon anyone?
All that said? We both found the entire plate to be phenomenal. It threw us. Did the restaurant have an obscure recipe that we may have cheated the traditional system? Maybe we haven’t had haggis before and had something else that we didn’t like (blood sausage)? We don’t know, but both the curry and haggis were excellent. We closed out the dinner with a “dram” of whiskey for each of us from two different parts of Scotland. Smooth, non peet-y, lovely. Another solid recommendation!
